Help! I want to buy a freezer

[MamaBearTeacher]

I want to cook more casseroles so that I can have several on hand ready to heat up at dinner time. I am thinking that I need an extra freezer for this. I would also use it to store pancakes,some cakes, some frozen meat and more frozen veggies and fruit. So far the upper part of our fridge has been just fine but I have sometimes limited myself because of space.

 

What kind of freezer should I get? An upright model or a chest? what size? I like the idea of an upright because I don't want to dig down deep into a cold chest. I saw an upright Frigidaire on sale for a good price but I looked it up online and 1/3 of the reviewers said it suddenly stopped working and they lost all their food. It's not on sale anymore anyways. I don't want to spend a lot. Advice?

[shawthorne44]

I went through this recently.  We ended up getting an upright off craigslist for $100.  One thing I planned on doing but haven't yet is get rubbermaid type containers that fit nicely in the space available on the shelves.  Then I can organize stuff to find it easily.  DH wasn't shutting the freezer door all the time, so it is all frosted in there.  Need to clear out the fridge enough to defrost.  

[Carol in Cal.]

Chest freezers are usually more energy efficient, and less likely to have the door left open and self-defrost.  But they are harder to find things in, so you might not use them as much.

 

I would say that if you get an upright freezer it would be a really good idea to get secondary containment in there, transparent plastic bins would be best, so that you can see the foods and not forget you have them, but also so that if the thing loses power or someone leave the door open and everything defrosts and starts dripping bloody messes out they are contained.

 

My inlaws have an upright freezer in their basement, and they make a lot of big batches of things like main dish soups and spaghetti sauces that they store in smaller containers for one meal at a time.  They keep a little list magnetted to the door of how many they have of each item, and they cross things off as they use them up.  This helps them see at a glance what to make next and also saves them from opening the door and staring inside so much.  Hence they don't have to defrost as often, which is really good.

[MEmama]

We just looked a few this weekend. The uprights, while super nice (so easy to organize!) were more expensive and used about twice the energy per year. I was surprised that the chest freezers don't use all that much.

 

I go back and forth how useful one would be for us. Our regular above the fridge freezer is woefully inadequate, but the chests are huge. I wonder if they make dorm refrigerator sized freezers? Ha ha.

[Tess in the Burbs]

We had an upright we bought from a big box store.  We did move and it stopped working shortly after that event.  The service guy I called to look at it gave me an education about appliances and quality work.  Pretty much all brands are linked to each other.  Unless you are going uber high end, they are all made in the same place and certain locations have 'brand names' for their store, but all are alike.  

 

The key he showed me was the welding.  Look at the back of the freezer.  Good welding is even.  You can look at the welding and know if it's made in China and crap.  Also, do not get the lines inside the walls of the unit.  They will break in there, leak, and you don't know why it's not working and it's impossible to fix.  He recommended an upright with the freeze lines showing(just be careful not to hit them will putting stuff in).  

 

I learned that a little more money and some looking over the unit I would  buy can get a better product that lasts longer.   

 

I say all that to also say....my dad gave us his OLD deep freezer from my childhood.  It was moved and still worked.  I sold it to a friend and it's still working for them.  This thing is almost my age!  So you may want to consider looking for a really old one used on craigslist and get a better product ;-)

[livetoread]

I bought a chest one first because they are more energy efficient. I found I left it open for much longer though as I was rummaging around trying to find stuff. I got rid of it and got an upright that I like much better.

 

I open mine several times a day, so that makes a difference in efficiency. I don't know if leaving the door open for a shorter amount of time makes up for the worse efficiency of the upright, but I am less frustrated and my hands aren't freezing from shoving frozen stuff out of the way to find what I need. Stuff doesn't get forgotten in the bottom for years either.

[KarenNC]

We had a chest freezer for a number of years, then replaced it with an upright. A few things to consider:

1) I'm short (5'4"), which makes it hard to dig down in the chest freezer to find things. I just flat couldn't reach the bottom, so try bending and reaching into the one you are considering and make sure you can reach the bottom without killing yourself or falling in.

2) It's much easier to find things in the upright freezer in general. I'm much, much happier with the upright.

3) Check the outlets where you plan to put it. Ours is in the garage and all the outlets there have the ground fault interrupter type plugs like in a bathroom and you can't plug the freezer into those. We had to have an electrician put in a dedicated outlet for it.

4) Check the space to make sure you have enough clearance to open the lid fully if you have a chest freezer (no shelves overhead).

[ktgrok]

I want one, but am half convinced to just get a second refrigerator/freezer for the garage. A used or cheap one, taht I can store food in before parties and such, or around the holidays when I run out of refrigerator room, and have room for frozen things. Just a thought. 

[The Girls' Mom]

I love my upright.  We've moved it across the country and back, a total of four times!

 

My inlaws have a huge chest freezer, and you can't find anything in it.  They have no clue what is in there..lol.  Mine, you can get in and out of very quickly and always see what you have.  I write on the front with a dry erase marker to keep a list of what is in it.  (I even keep it updated occasionally)

[City Mouse]

I have both an upright from Sears and a small chest freezer that came from Walmart. One thing I really like about the upright is that it has an alarm that goes off if the door is left open or the temperature gets too warm. I have lost freezer contents more than once due to someone not shutting the door all the way. I keep day to day stuff in the upright and meat in it the chest freezer. Most of the meat is from an elk, and I have it layered so that I don't have to dig down to the bottom yet.

[Annie G]

We've had an upright for about twelve years. Love it.  Yeah it probably uses a bunch more electricity but it's more convenient for me. 

[Guest]

We just got a new chest freezer from Costco about a week ago. A Danby compact chest freezer. We already had an upright.

 

Chest freezers are the best - cold settles so every time we open the door of our upright it loses temperature a bit. I open the Danby and can barely feel cold wafting up and out at all, because it isn't losing large volumes of chilled air due to the design. I can also pack it a lot more full for the cubic feet than the upright, where stuff just falls out after a certain point :lol:

[MamaBearTeacher]

That's what I'm worried about with a chest, that my hands will freeze! But it sounds like they last longer and are more reliable.

[MamaBearTeacher]

I am also short. I had not thought of reaching down into the freezer!

 

Do they make small uprights that don't use too much energy?

[MEmama]

I think the upright we looked at last weekend used around $54 in energy per year. Really, that didn't seem bad to me at all.

 

There's a chance it said it SAVED that much (energy star rated) but I don't think so. I remember being surprised, thinking for all the talk about how much electricity they use that didn't seem like much in the grand scheme.

 

It was at Lowes, I think. Could have been Home Depot.

 

I wasn't paying much attention that day, was I? Ha ha.

[LuvToRead]

I also vote for an upright.  I keep mine pretty organized, so I can open it and get what I want in a few seconds.  Chest freezers take up so much more room, and we just don't have it.  Plus, I have no desire to rearrange the freezer when I want something that is not within easy reach.  I'm too short to reach the bottom of one without a step stool. 

 

I grew up with a chest freezer, and my mom would send my sister and I out to get something.  My mom's wasn't organized at all, and I hated it.  The door would be open for a few minutes while we rummaged around.  They have an upright now.

 

I just went to the Lowes website and randomly picked 2 similar size freezers and checked their Energy Guide.

A 15 cu ft. Whirlpool chest uses about $36 in energy per year.

A 15.7 cu ft upright Whirlpool (not frost free) uses about $54 in energy per year.

 

We have had the door left open on our upright, and several pounds of meat defrosted.  It was still cold, so I cooked a lot of meat and refroze it.  My parents have an alarm on theirs if the door is left open. 

 

 

 

[Carol in Cal.]

My grandmother used to freeze casseroles in her glass dishes, and then once they were frozen she would pop them out and wrap them in foil so they would take up less room in the freezer.  Then when she wanted to cook them she would peel off the foil (far easier than plastic wrap), plunk them back in the same dish, thaw them, and bake them.  I have never tried this, but I can attest to her great results with this method.